I had never been the best at anything, really. I had the terrific luck of being surrounded by people who were better, and by better, I meant they had a defining feature of superior talent. One transformed on the stage of our high school auditorium into whichever character she pleased. One had a voice that could make angels cry tears of joy. Another could write better essays, solve harder equations, and understand more complex scientific concepts. One, the smoothest talker in the building, charmed the whole school into a spell. My words fell on deaf ears, and my popularity wasn’t much to speak of. As far as I could tell, my area of expertise specialized in falling short in just about everything. At the honors ceremony near the end of my high school career, I received three awards, what for I do not recall. All I remember is the lecture on the ride home about how none of the awards had a monetary award attached, and how, 9 class seats ahead of me at 19th, my friend had managed to snag a $200 gem.
I did “fine” in academics, even managing to impress some teachers with my writing; my journalism teacher candidly pointed out that I “wrecked” the curb in my Journalism class by completing all the assignments on time and with a certain quality of content. Writing was something that seemed like a passing talent, there and then not. In eighth grade I was put in a selective creative writing class. In ninth grade my writing was mediocre at best. Tenth I barely wrote, eleventh my teacher tossed back C and B papers though I had been receiving As in the past. Senior year was when I wrecked the curb, and all the while through junior and senior year I was writing for my school's newspaper as the Editor in Chief. On uneven, unsteady ground, I started college. Second semester, I was sitting shocked as people in my writing class gushed over my inheritance paper. My English professor strongly encouraged me to change to an English major. Writing, it seemed, had a firework affect. It was there, spectacular, not there, there. But something that I always seemed to have was an ability to listen for listening's sake. As I spent the four years required of me at high school, I often found myself comforting friends as they became upset about this or that, shocked to find that the “superior talents” they had didn’t seem to bring them the peace of mind that they were looking for and that I was convinced I could achieve should I find the missing puzzle piece, my “area of expertise” or “talent”. Still, all I had succeeded in thus far was finding out what I wasn’t good at—math, science, dating, not being awkward.
Thing is, I couldn’t find my ongoing talent because of the commonly referred to “right under your nose” affect. I didn’t see my writing or my ability to listen and comfort as abilities because to me they were just things that were just there . Listening, especially, was something that no one could particularly identify as a talent themselves. People notice when individuals don’t listen. When I was listening to a friend who was upset, listening didn’t strike me as something I was good at; I just lamented and worried over the fact that a great number of the situations people confided in me about were not fixable. Fixing—it was something I was obsessed with. If I couldn’t actively change the situation, I completely understated the value of my help as a listener and confidant. The situations I could change and the moments in which people pointed out to me that I was helpful provided me with little pushes of happiness, but once I encountered a situation I could, once again, not fix, I was back at square one. Math problems, they had solutions. Science questions had methods. What I was dealing with, and I later realized I was fluid in, was a certain Emotional IQ and capacity for understanding and mediating, listening and maintaining even ground. One friend, who was romantically sought after all throughout school years beginning in 5th grade, after being rejected at a school dance, confessed to me that she was jealous of me. To an 8th grader who had yet to have a boyfriend or a formally established identity as a person, I was wholeheartedly confused. What was there to be jealous of? The answer was my “put-togetherness”, my “always knowing what to say and how to say it”, and my alleged self-assurance, self-assurance that somehow had been conveyed through my interactions with others, though I didn’t actually possess much self-confidence to mention. And here I thought I was blundering about making no impression or progress, a weak jack of few trades that had failed to grasp hold of a special talent. The talent was merely blending with the background of my life, threading through my experiences and underlining my relationships. My way with words, in both life and on paper, was my strength, even though grades, or a roaring crowd, or a certification or monetary reward didn’t necessarily reflect that.
I had never been the best at anything, really. I had the terrific luck of being surrounded by people who were better, and by better, I meant they had a defining feature of superior talent. One transformed on the stage of our high school auditorium into whichever character she pleased. One had a voice that could make angels cry tears of joy. Another could write better essays, solve harder equations, and understand more complex scientific concepts. One, the smoothest talker in the building, charmed the whole school into a spell. My words fell on deaf ears, and my popularity wasn’t much to speak of. As far as I could tell, my area of expertise specialized in falling short in just about everything. At the honors ceremony near the end of my high school career, I received three awards, what for I do not recall. All I remember is the lecture on the ride home about how none of the awards had a monetary award attached, and how, 9 class seats ahead of me at 19th, my friend had managed to snag a $200 gem.
I did “fine” in academics, even managing to impress some teachers with my writing; my journalism teacher candidly pointed out that I “wrecked” the curb in my Journalism class by completing all the assignments on time and with a certain quality of content. Writing was something that seemed like a passing talent, there and then not. In eighth grade I was put in a selective creative writing class. In ninth grade my writing was mediocre at best. Tenth I barely wrote, eleventh my teacher tossed back C and B papers though I had been receiving As in the past. Senior year was when I wrecked the curb, and all the while through junior and senior year I was writing for my school's newspaper as the Editor in Chief. On uneven, unsteady ground, I started college. Second semester, I was sitting shocked as people in my writing class gushed over my inheritance paper. My English professor strongly encouraged me to change to an English major. Writing, it seemed, had a firework affect. It was there, spectacular, not there, there. But something that I always seemed to have was an ability to listen for listening's sake.
As I spent the four years required of me at high school, I often found myself comforting friends as they became upset about this or that, shocked to find that the “superior talents” they had didn’t seem to bring them the peace of mind that they were looking for and that I was convinced I could achieve should I find the missing puzzle piece, my “area of expertise” or “talent”. Still, all I had succeeded in thus far was finding out what I wasn’t good at—math, science, dating, not being awkward.
Thing is, I couldn’t find my ongoing talent because of the commonly referred to “right under your nose” affect. I didn’t see my writing or my ability to listen and comfort as abilities because to me they were just things that were just there . Listening, especially, was something that no one could particularly identify as a talent themselves. People notice when individuals don’t listen. When I was listening to a friend who was upset, listening didn’t strike me as something I was good at; I just lamented and worried over the fact that a great number of the situations people confided in me about were not fixable. Fixing—it was something I was obsessed with. If I couldn’t actively change the situation, I completely understated the value of my help as a listener and confidant. The situations I could change and the moments in which people pointed out to me that I was helpful provided me with little pushes of happiness, but once I encountered a situation I could, once again, not fix, I was back at square one. Math problems, they had solutions. Science questions had methods. What I was dealing with, and I later realized I was fluid in, was a certain Emotional IQ and capacity for understanding and mediating, listening and maintaining even ground. One friend, who was romantically sought after all throughout school years beginning in 5th grade, after being rejected at a school dance, confessed to me that she was jealous of me. To an 8th grader who had yet to have a boyfriend or a formally established identity as a person, I was wholeheartedly confused. What was there to be jealous of? The answer was my “put-togetherness”, my “always knowing what to say and how to say it”, and my alleged self-assurance, self-assurance that somehow had been conveyed through my interactions with others, though I didn’t actually possess much self-confidence to mention. And here I thought I was blundering about making no impression or progress, a weak jack of few trades that had failed to grasp hold of a special talent. The talent was merely blending with the background of my life, threading through my experiences and underlining my relationships. My way with words, in both life and on paper, was my strength, even though grades, or a roaring crowd, or a certification or monetary reward didn’t necessarily reflect that.